Socialist Egalitarian Policies and Education Inequality in Central Europe after World War II This paper investigates the effect of ‘Communist Affirmative Action’ on inequality in access to secondary and post-secondary education in five former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe between 1948 and 1989. I argue that earlier research failed to identify any periods of reduced inequality in former socialist countries because it employed inadequate definitions of both the dependent and independent variables. I correct these inaccuracies and I investigate data from the ‘Social Stratification in Eastern Europe after 1989’ survey. I am indeed able to document that inequality in access to education declined during the periods of the most extreme Communism in the early 1950s and, in some countries, also during the early 1970s.

Shifting Governance. Managing the Commons: the Case of Slovenský Raj National Park. The article studies the role of social capital and governance in rural development within the Slovenský Raj National Park. Based on the theory of Common Pool Resources and Network Governance, the case study explores the external and internal influences on cooperation. Current decision making in the Park is still affected by post socialist relations. In particular, inefficient institutional design and non-robust governance of the resources have resulted in over-exploitation of natural resources and treating common property as open-access. On one hand, evidence emerged on domination of interpersonal trust and failure of institutional design. These were found as barriers for the National Park to be viewed by various actors as an asset. On the other hand, municipal and tourism networks show that cooperation is gradually moving from being externally to internally driven, while displaying characteristics of bottom-up development. A hierarchical governance structure is thus slowly opening up, shifting towards networks.

The Au Pair Employers: Who Are They, Whom They Search For and What Do They Await? The starting point of our work is the often-stated re-emergence of individual paid childcare in western countries. We begin with an overview of the dominant explanations presented in literature available. Using data from online au pair agencies we try to answer the questions presented in the title of this study focusing on the differences between countries in demand and expectations. After presenting the results we try to validate the dominant explanations of the re-emergence of housemaids in western households via a confrontation with our findings. While failing in the attempt to prove that the influence of growing employment of women, the unwillingness of men to involve in doing housework and the shortcoming and dismantling of (subsidized) institutional childcare are in an anticipated correlation with demand for paid childcare we present alternative hypothesis to explain the phenomenon discussed.